It's raining, it's pouring..

Well not really pouring, more of a typical London drizzle. It's a nice change from the blazing sun we've been having for the past few weeks. I know, I know. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth but it's London, dammit! It's supposed to be overcast and drizzly!

My weekend was fun. I went down to the London marathon to watch the race. Really it was just an excuse to drink but after getting lost once I managed to find the pub that we were supposed to meet at- it was on the 16th and 18th mile, and wormed my way to the front to watch me some runners.

When I first agreed to go, I thought 'Cool, an excuse to drink and heckle runners. I will enjoy this immensly.' Except this is not the case! People cheer the runners! The runners sometimes put their name on their shirts and so people will yell out "Good job Tim!, Doing well Sally!" Stuff like that. On top of this vocal support, the spectators closest to the race hand out little jellied candies to the runners to help them keep their blood sugar up.

This is all terribly un-London. Londoners don't like human contact. They don't like to yell. They would happily just ignore anything going on around them that doesn't directly interfere with their daily routine.

Anyway, it was great. The crowd where we were standing was about 3 deep but after awhile a hole opened up at the front and I got to yell and support and toast the runners. You'd think at mile 18 people would be tired. A lot of them were definately miserable, but some would throw their hands in the air and smile and wave. It really was kind of fun to hopefully give them a little boost for the next fifty yards.

We did see one guy collapse with leg cramps. The girl that was supposed to be watching for that sort of thing didn't see it so the crowd all started yelling for help for the guy. Don't heckle the runners but you can heckle the volunteers!

The runners were amazing- not because they were great runners or whatever, I didn't even see the actual leaders of the race ever, just the people in the middle, but because of the things they wore to run in. There were people in full on costumes- I saw a couple batmans, a full tigger mascot costume complete with giant head, 3 guys connected by a cardboard pirate ship, and a whole platoon of army guys running with full kit on their backs.

I never really thought that hanging out and watching a marathon would be fun- I almost didn't go. But it was one of the cooler public events that I've seen since I've been here.

Anyway, I'm in the library and every now and again it smells like pee. Schizophrenic man is here as well as some of the other colorful regulars. Good stuff.

Something to make you hate me

London is in full bloom. The trees are flowering, there's tulips everywhere and everyone has busted out their warm weather clothes. For the past two weeks it has been in the 60s-70s and I've seen more British pasty white skin than I think is advisable.

Two nights ago it was so warm I slept with my windows open. HA!

And, it stopped snowing in March and from what I can see there will be no "mud season." Double HA!

I think London will be a lot less oppressive than nyc when it gets really warm. For all the complaints people have about it being so spread out and how they chose not to build up, it really does keep the air moving around. You don't feel like a fat man is sitting on your shoulders when it gets hot.

The other thing that helps is that there's a park practically every other block. Just a little patch of green here and there (lately you don't see the green for all the underdressed brits that are baking themselves) with some flowering trees and some benches. Oh, and bold squirrels that will steal your sandwich.

Don't say you haven't been forewarned.

Someone, somewhere is laughing at me

Alright. This is not funny.

For the past week I've been thrilled. I finally managed to get my skin under control. Hello haltertops and other outfits that may or may not make me look slutty!

But wait.. what is this I see when I get out of the shower. Jesus Mary and Joseph...

I have my first grey hair. There may have been two, I was too scared to delve into it and find out. I'm hoping this is an anomaly, like Kate's long grey hair on her shoulder, but deep down I know that it's not. It may be the only one there now, but soon friends will arrive... Crinkly grey friends that have zero interest in lying flat like the rest of my hair (as much as my hair lays flat, I know).

I'm fairly certain this is the flat iron's fault.

Sooo...

I don't have anything exciting or fun to talk about. All my classes are finished, I have a paper due friday that I've been putting off writing (haHA! what else is new?!) and I'm poor until my next loan check comes in so I'm pretty confined to town. Which is fine, I like town.

BBC Radio 4 had a neat article about Great Barrington, MA and the local currency they have. Between that and Vermont's underground movement to secede.. the Union is falling apart! I must come home!

But not until after the 4th of July (happy bday gramma Annie!) because I have tori amos tickets.

I think he created a wino

So these past two weeks have come and gone- having Mike here was wonderful. I should have gotten on the plane with him and come home for a visit. I don't have any classes. I only have two papers, a dissertation to write and a couple of meetings for the next 6 months.. buuut I didn't.

Part of the fun of having him around is that he makes me try new things, mainly food and drinks. And I mean he'll actively shove it in my mouth if gentle persuasion ceases to work.

This visit was wine.

For those of you who don't know, I am not a wine drinker. I like beer. This can make me terrible Klassy looking at fancy places so I normally order soda when I go out to a nice dinner. A bonus is that soda does not taste like burning acidy yuck. It's sugary and bubbly.

So anyway, the agenda was wine. And, suprise suprise, I found some I like and began to drink it everytime we would go out. At 11-13% it gets me tipsy faster than beer without all the filling!

Taking it one step further, I fell in love with the vinho verde (green wine) in Portugal. Had it for every dinner and a few lunches. Don't judge, Portugal has a lot of stairs because the whole damn place is on a hill and it kept me from being crabby.

However it led to a great little exchange in Pizza Hut (again don't judge, there's only so much cod one can eat) on our last night in Portugal. After I bought a personal sized (50 ml) bottle of wine for myself to go with my fancy meal of cheesy garlic bread and cheese pizza, Mike said "Uhh you may have a problem. You just started drinking wine a week ago and now you're kind of a wino.." Me: "At 13% who can say no!"

Yep. Can't change a tiger's stripes. Still Klassy.